


In It Together

by servantofclio



Series: Zoe Ryder [4]
Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 15:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11016240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: In the week since that whole business with Verand’s rescue mission, Liam’s been weirdly subdued, and Zoe Ryder’s been frantically thinking things over.





	In It Together

In the week since that whole business with Verand’s rescue mission, Liam’s been weirdly subdued, and Zoe Ryder’s been frantically thinking things over.

Okay, him being subdued isn’t that weird at all, given the circumstances. He accepted the obligatory ribbing from everyone with good enough grace, he’s been keeping in touch with Bradley and Verand and some other contacts, he must have done something or other to make it up to Vetra for getting dragged along on that little adventure. It’s not like he’s become a hermit or anything, but he’s... dialed back a little bit. Spending more time on his own. It stands out, since Liam is usually the voice of cheer and optimism, the one who’s always ready with a dumb joke or a vid recommendation, who makes up games where they try to recreate food or sports from home. It’s definitely been quieter around the ship in the last week. When Zoe’d talked to him, he’d said he was thinking things over.

Which is probably a good thing, all around. Zoe’s been doing some thinking herself.

She’s been thinking stuff like: Liam was the first person who acted like she could do this job, who believed in her when Cora was visibly swallowing her reservations. (Gil’s right, Cora has a terrible poker face.) Even when Zoe was busy hightailing the Nomad out of high-radiation zones on Eos, Liam had just laughed and slugged in her in the shoulder and gone on being totally cheerful and supportive, like he was sure she was going to make things work.

She’s been thinking how, given all that, it’s easy to forget that Liam might be freaking out, too.

In between all the yelling at each other as one thing after another went wrong, he’d let a couple of things slip.

Something about needing to make the whole trip worth it.

That one stuck with her. Thinking back, she can also remember flashes of nerves back on those first days, on Habitat 7 and the Nexus. Zoe was reeling from everything back then, one disaster piled on top of another: their arrival, her brother’s accident, the fall, the aliens, right up to Dad’s death and having the title of Pathfinder suddenly dumped on her. So she’d almost forgotten how on edge Liam had been, too. She remembers now, how back on Habitat 7, he’d just about jumped out of his skin when she started fiddling with the kett machinery. At the Nexus security station, they’d talked about how weird everything was, and laughed nervously as they eyed the Nexus staff around them. And then they’d kind of moved on.

She’d been exasperated when she found out about Verand the security codes, how Liam was relying on her to fix things now they were in a bind.

But she’s been starting to think maybe she’d been leaning on Liam too hard all along, relying on him to boost her spirits and her confidence, without paying enough attention to how he was doing. Which he probably wasn’t going to hold against her, but which she still didn’t feel very good about.

And now that she’s thought all this, she’s not sure how to bring up the subject. Saying anything like “ _hey, have I been taking you for granted?_ _”_ is just going to get her an answer like “ _no, of course not, everything_ _’s fine_ ,” even if everything is totally not fine.

Mostly, all this thinking things over has led her round and round in circles, trying to figure out what she feels, what she wants, what she ought to do, until she wants to give up in dizzy confusion.

Maybe Liam’s had better luck.

Right now, pausing in his doorway, she’s not sure he has. Liam’s got a vid running, like usual, but it’s muted, and he’s sitting on the couch looking at images on his omni-tool with something like the lost expression he had when he was talking about that car. It’s the kind of expression that looks so fundamentally wrong on him that it makes her heart hurt.

She doesn’t know how to fix it, but maybe there’s at least an opening.

“Hey,” Zoe says, knocking lightly on the door frame. “Got a minute?”

Liam looks up, and his face quickly rearranges into something that looks more like a smile. Not quite a real smile, though, which also looks totally wrong, and doesn’t make her feel any better. “Hey, uh, yeah, Pathfinder. Come on in.”

“I’m not so much pathfinding at the moment,” she says, sauntering in, trying to look casual.

He laughs. More than that remark really deserves, if she’s being honest with herself, but at least he looks more like himself that way. “Yeah, guess you know your way here already. Anything I can do for you, Ryder?” He looks hopeful as he says it, making Zoe wonder if she should have made up some kind of project before she came in here. That probably would have been smart, actually. A good idea that arrived too late.

She shrugs instead. “Nah, I’m good. Um, anything I can do for _you_?”

The second she asks, she knows that he’s going to say no. And sure enough, his eyes cut to the side, and his smile wavers, but he says, “No problem here—”

She has to stop him before he can say one more word. Definitely before he can go back to calling her “Pathfinder.” On impulse, she takes two steps to close the distance between them and just plants herself on his lap, sideways. Right up in his space, where he can’t dodge or deflect while she’s trying to say this.

Liam grunts in surprise, but he doesn’t seem put off. In fact, his arm comes up almost automatically to support her back. It’s that, as much as anything, that gives her the confidence to blurt it out. “You know you can talk to me about stuff, right? If anything’s on your mind. This is me, not a Pathfinder thing, and you’re important to me, so I just... if you’re upset or unhappy or anything, you can tell me about it. I want you to.”

While she’s talking, his startled expression fades into a warm, lopsided smile. “Yeah?”

She puts both hands on his shoulders for emphasis, looking him square in the face. “Yeah, really.”

His gaze drifts to the side for a moment, going distant. “It’s nothing,” he says. “Or, you know, it’s just a lot.”

Zoe snorts. “You’re telling me,” she says, fervently.

He chuckles. “I know, right? Didn’t want to lay any more on you.” Something flickers over his face — guilt, maybe — but he keeps talking. “Don’t want to make things sound worse than they are. We’ve made progress. Making friends with the angara, and maybe fixing things with the krogan, that’s all good. Putting us on the right track to making things better for all of us. But.” He shrugs. “It’s not exactly what most of us signed up for. Seeing the stars, golden worlds, new frontiers.”

Yeah. She gets that. Those ads with the soaring music and confident promises seem like they came from another lifetime. “Well, we got to see stars, at least?” she offers?

A huff of laughter. His shoulders shake under her hands. “Yeah.” He glances back toward her, his expression gone sober. “Most of my friends thought I was daft. Getting in over my head. Coming here wasn’t an easy decision. I want to make sure it’s worth it, you know?”

She smiles, a little sadly, at his earnest gaze. “I know.” With Dad urging them to do it, she and Zach had made up their minds quickly, but she’d left behind her share of people who’d thought she was nuts.

Not her parents, of course. She hadn’t had to make that choice; Liam had. In his place, she wasn’t sure she’d have left. Making that choice worth it... yeah. That was a lot.

“But it’s better. Getting better. Like I said, progress.” He shrugs again.

“Right,” Zoe says. “We’ve come a long way since we first got here. We’ll get things figured out. Together.” He’s starting to relax, the tight lines of his shoulders easing. She squeezes lightly, encouraging. “Thanks for all your work. You _are_ crazy, though.”

He was probably about to say something modest, but his eyebrows go up at that. “In a good way, I hope?”

“In the best way.” She leans forward to kiss him, right on the mouth.

He’s smiling when she’s done, and his arm curls around her, pulling her in closer, so she’s leaning against his shoulder. He makes a comfortable seat, warm and solid. “Glad you think so.”

“Yeah, well, people seem to think I’m crazy, too.” She kisses him again, just for good measure, letting the kiss linger.

“That’s because you have an AI in your head and you keep turning on alien machines like it’s no thing at all,” Liam says, grinning.

She sticks out her tongue at him. He laughs and kisses her, with enough heat and intensity to make her stop worrying, or really thinking about anything at all.


End file.
